posted May 22, 2006 04:00 PM         

Some Utah residents expressed belief in these unusual monsters, while others pronounced them to be a scam. New accounts of monster sightings surfaced from Bear Lake, the Great Salt Lake, Sevier Lake, Fish Lake and Utah Lake. Some of these stories were blatantly false, while others appear to have been told by people who actually believed they had seen strange aquatic animals in Utah's waters.

After the first wave of stories flooded Utah's press, interest in the creatures briefly waned. Then in September 1870, commercial fishermen from Springville brought the monsters back into everyday conversation. While plying their trade on the shores of Utah Lake, the Dallin family found the upper left portion of the skull of some large animal. The teeth were missing, but the empty sockets showed they had been as large as those of an ox. The skull's most remarkable feature was the five-inch-long tusk that projected from the rear section of the jaw.

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